5 Diverse Christmas Books for Kids

These joyful books are a must-add to your home collection.

Rachel Garlinghouse
December 15, 2015

When I was a child, my mom had a special tub of books that were only brought out during the month of December. These Christmas-themed books were magical! I’m certain that what made them so special was that we only got to view them for a period, and then they were tucked away until the next Christmas. This is a tradition I’ve carried on with my own children.

Here are five diverse Christmas books that are a must-add to your home collection:

We Believe in Christmas (Karen Kingsbury): This book shows the journey of a family getting ready to attend their church’s Christmas program. They dress in costumes, rush out the door, and drive through town, seeing the beautiful decorations and snow. As an added bonus, the family is obviously a transracial adoptive family!

The Night Before Christmas (Rachel Isadora): Isadora has taken several popular stories and re-told and re-illustrated them in a way that reflects diversity. In this rendition of The Night Before Christmas, Isadora illustrates Christmas using a black family and a black Santa.

The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats): Though not specifically a Christmas book, the beautiful snowy day adventures are certainly seasonally appropriate! A young black boy enjoys the snow: dragging his feet to make tracks, hitting a tree with a stick, making snow angels, and throwing snowballs. Keats’ book is a classic!

Under the Christmas Tree (Nikki Grimes): A Christmas poetry book that is sure to please. There are both short and long poems, some silly and some serious. Children with different shades of skin are featured throughout the book.

The Little Drummer Boy (Ezra Jack Keats): Keats’ version features a boy with brown skin who is shown walking, meeting baby Jesus, and visiting with animals. All of the song’s verses are included, and the book can be sung or read to young children.

Rachel Garlinghouse

Rachel Garlinghouse is the author of "Come Rain or Come Shine: A White Parent's Guide to Adopting and Parenting Black Children," "Black Girls Can: An Empowering Story of Yesterdays and Todays," and "Encouragement for the Adoption Journey: 52 Devotions and a Journal" (co-authored with Madeleine Melcher). Rachel's adoption education and experience has appeared on MSNBC, NPR, Huffington Post Live, ABCNews.com, Babble, Scary Mommy, Portrait of Adoption, Slow Mama, I Am Not the Babysitter, and more. Rachel is a mom of three children, adopted domestically and transracially. Learn more about her family's adventures at White Sugar, Brown Sugar or on Twitter @whitebrownsugar.

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